Dr Richard Dawkins wants atheists to have a collective voice. Photograph: Martin Argles
Every MP in the country is to receive a copy of Richard Dawkins' latest book The God Delusion following a grassroots effort by humanists who want to challenge state privileges given to religious groups.
The campaign, organised through the community action website, Pledgebank, is an attempt to demonstrate how widespread secular and atheist views are in this country. It comes in response to Prof Dawkins's rallying cry in the book for atheists to be more vocal.
"The reason so many people don't notice atheists is that many of us are reluctant to 'come out'. My dream is that this book may help people to come out. Exactly as in the case of the gay movement, the more people come out, the easier it will be for others to join them.
"Being an atheist is nothing to be apologetic about. On the contrary, it is something to be proud of, standing tall to face the far horizon, for atheism nearly always indicates a healthy independence of mind and, indeed, a healthy mind."
Pledgebank works by hosting pledges from people who want to recruit others to achieve a common aim. James Christie from Fife posted the original pledge: "I will arrange for my MP to receive a copy of Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, but only if 645 other people (one per UK constituency) will do the same for other MPs."
Having achieved enough fellow pledgers, copies of the book are now being sent to MPs. Most are due to arrive on Monday.
Mr Christie said he was initially moved to set up the pledge because his "blood boiled over" when he heard about efforts by the Catholic church to be exempted from adoption rules banning discrimination against gay couples. "The unashamed manner in which they asked, with no sense that they were exploiting their privilege and expecting favourable treatment - it reeked of disdain and arrogance," he said.
But he said the issue is much broader. Religious groups are given other state privileges such as funding for faith schools, the presence of bishops in the House of Lords and tax breaks. (Mr Christie said the pledge was not initiated by the book's publishers, Bantam Press, and although he approached them for help they declined to become involved.)
Liberal Democrat Evan Harris, who is Prof Dawkins' MP, said he thought MPs would find the book useful. "It would be valuable if more politicians realised that there is a large group of secular people who don't believe that religion and the state should mix," he said.
"The government increasingly wants to recognise religions as separate communities which is both dangerous for social cohesion and tends to over-represent their interests."
Prof Dawkins, who has been nicknamed "Darwin's rottweiller" for his vigorous defence of evolutionary theory, also added his name to the list of pledgers, although he said that by the time he signed up, Mr Harris's name had already been taken.
"If some respectable percentage of MPs read the book, I naturally hope that it will change the way they think. It would be especially nice if it changes their approach to education and 'faith schools'," he said.
"[Atheists] are a very significant minority in Britain, but we have far less influence than much smaller minorities because we are not organised."
"Organising atheists has been compared to herding cats, for the obvious reason that they are intelligent and independent-minded," added Prof Dawkins. But as he wrote in The God Delusion: "Even if they can't be herded, cats in sufficient numbers can make a lot of noise and they cannot be ignored."
